Bio:

Anthony Newton was born into the prestigious Newton family during a period of unprecedented economic boom in Zalora. Alcester, long the home of the Newton family, became a major center of trading, and the Newton family, already prosperous from land acquisitions made by the more martial members of the family a century ago during the Unification Wars. As trade in the region exploded, and as Alcester took a central position in this boom, the Newton family leveraged their wealth and power to create a successful banking enterprise. By the time of Anthony’s birth, 20 years had passed, and the family’s banks spanned almost all the major southern towns, providing banking services and money lending to the population. At the age of 25, Anthony become the sole manager of the business, and helped create the region’s insurance and investing industries. As trade across the seas increased, Newton banks provided insurance coverage for the ships, and helped coordinate investors to fund these ventures.

Within two years of taking over the business from his father, Anthony Newton married Margaret Elizabeth Haverstrum, daughter of a powerful member of the royal court in Halstead. As much as the marriage was to solidify the Newton family’s new national standing, Anthony and Margaret were very much in love. With the money and power coming to Anthony from his new relationship to the Haverstrum family, Newton banks spread across all of Zalora, becoming in effect the national bank. He was also inducted into the Royal Army, as generations of his ancestors had. Being a ceremonial position, Anthony never truly “served” as normal soldiers did, but received basic arms training in order to more accurately perform drills in parade. For three years, business was successful, and Anthony managed to juggle life as a successful owner of a major national banking operation, and his family, now counting two children, Christopher and Abigail.

On top of his business and family lives, Anthony indulged in his hobby of collecting archaic religious and magickal manuscripts. Starting at a young age, Anthony had been fascinated by the arcane, and especially the manuscripts from the L’ythurian cult, which thrilled Anthony with their stories of horror and gruesome occultist ritual. The longer he went studied, the more intrigued he became, until he began to encounter the modern decedents of the cult. Although it never superseded his duties to his family and his family business, Anthony began to spend more and more of his time exploring the cult, and spending more and more of his own personal money to get his hands on whatever documents he could.

Trouble struck on Antony’s 30th birthday. A series of devastating pirate attacks on major shipping convoys lost Newton Banks millions, as investors demanded payment, and owners of the ships demanded compensation. Meanwhile, internal strife increased and began to disrupt inter-city trade. Despite all of Anthony’s best efforts, Lord Haverstrum refused to use his influence to move troops and ships to protect the trade routes Anthony’s banks depended on. All the loans that the bank had handed out were called in in an attempt to keep the bank from completely collapsing. However, as the economy was already in trouble, few of the debts could be paid back, resulting in the bank losing even more money, and helping to further send Zalora’s economy downwards. As the economy began to falter, Anthony watched as his business crumbled around him. The final blow came when Margaret, the wife whom he had loved completely for years, seized control of family assets under a law her father convinced the king to pass. In the process, the King nationalized (under the guise of protecting national integrity, and to preserve Royal power and prestige) what little remained of the Newton family’s once great banking business.

Now 31, his family, house, and money gone, Anthony managed to steal away some of his precious manuscripts, and headed north, in an attempt to leave his past behind.